


The Surrender is Slow and Sweet, But the Descent is Quick and Bitter

by unkissed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Auror Harry Potter, Drug Use, M/M, Post-War, Unrequited Love, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 11:59:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4478546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unkissed/pseuds/unkissed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war, Draco is under house arrest and uses the familiar comforts of his most loyal friend in a vain attempt to light the fires once ignited by another raven-haired creature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Surrender is Slow and Sweet, But the Descent is Quick and Bitter

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written approximately 2011-2013, and edited in 2015.

**The Surrender is Slow and Sweet, But the Descent is Quick and Bitter**

**I. Three Years After The War**

“You can stay if you want,” Draco says, after dislodging himself from Theodore’s mouth, his already softening cock making a wet noise as it slides out. 

 

The sound makes him sick.  It’s a feeling akin to the one he used to have as a teenage boy after wanking himself raw to the thought of a certain spectacled git – shame, disgust, and hopelessness, dulled only by the sedating effects of orgasm. He hates to use his dear friend like this. But Theodore makes it so fucking easy.

 

Theodore rises from his kneeling position on the floor to stand before Draco, who sits perched on the edge of the bed with his legs parted.  He drapes his arms on Draco’s shoulders, coyly biting the corner of his bottom lip.

 

“I don’t know. Do I _want_ to stay?” Theodore intones suggestively as he leans down to kiss Draco.

 

But Draco turns his face, avoiding the other’s lips. It’s not that he finds it repulsive to kiss somebody with remnants of his own spunk on the other’s mouth. There had been a time when he loved it – when it meant that he’d shared something deeply intimate, when power and magic were exchanged.  But this time had been none of those things.  He soothes the sting of rejection by gently raking his fingers through his friend’s disheveled, black hair. A somber, reminiscent grin quirks the corner of his lips as Draco remembers kissing another raven-haired creature whose hair could never be tamed after sex.

 

“I might fuck you later, but I can’t promise anything,” Draco admits with a tired exhale, nuzzling Theodore’s smooth cheek. He smells of cigarettes and coconut rum, just like he did the first time they’d kissed in the gardens of Malfoy Manor at the age of fifteen.  Draco breathes him in deeply, relishing the scent like cherishing a memory, clinging to wisps of a childhood long gone.

 

“I’ll stay,” Theodore whispers. Draco had never doubted that he would. “I don’t know when the Ministry will approve another visit.”

 

 

Being under house arrest is lonely and depressing with nobody but the ghosts of his past to keep him company. His friends could have let him rot at Malfoy Manor and wiped their hands clean of him. He would not have blamed them if they did not want to be associated with a convicted criminal. Thank Merlin his friends were loyal enough to petition the Ministry for visitation.  Draco often wonders if he would’ve done the same for them.

 

Blaise had gotten the worst of their lot. He had been extradited from England to stand trial in Italy and is now serving the first of his five-year sentence in a Roman prison.  If Draco were not sentenced to confinement in his own home, and if he were free, would he bother visiting Blaise?  Would he appeal to have Blaise’s case heard in the Wizengamot in hopes of a lighter sentence? Draco wishes he could answer these questions, but doing so would force him to face just how ugly he can be – because it was Draco’s betrayal and stupidity that put Blaise in prison in the first place.

 

 

 “You don’t have to stay if you have other places to go,” Draco assures Theodore, “Daphne was able to get approval to visit next week, so it’s not as if I’m going to be cooped up alone for--”

 

“Draco,” Theodore interrupts him with a reprimanding tone and a pointed look.  “Do you think I come here just to get laid?  Honestly,” he scoffs.

 

Draco heaves a quiet, relieved sigh. “I appreciate it, Theo. You can stay in the guestroom if it’ll be more comfortable.”

 

Theodore gently pushes Draco’s shoulder, forcing him, with little effort, to lay on the bed.  “Nonsense.  I have twenty-four hours with you.  I’m getting the most of every single second.”

 

“Even if that means watching me sleep?” Draco teases.

 

“I couldn’t ask for anything more,” says Theodore, beaming with adoration as he drapes himself over Draco.

 

Over the past six years, Draco has never and will never give Theodore any indication that his adoration, will be returned. It gives Draco little comfort to know that despite all this, Theodore still loves him.   Nor does it make Draco hate himself any less to know that Daphne loves him like a brother, more than she loves her own sister.  Or that even Pansy still loves him in her own way.

 

The affection of all his friends does nothing to quell the pain of knowing that one raven-haired creature will never love him.

 

 

 

**II. Two Years After The War**

 

Draco pauses in the doorway between the bathroom and the bedroom, resting his hands on the frame, displaying his naked body as a work of art.

 

His conquest of the night is already waiting naked on the bed, sitting impatiently on the edge.  “Took you long enough,” the young man taunts as he rises to meet Draco.

 

Draco slinks forward and the other nearly collides with him in his anxiousness to touch.  One hand grasps a bare hip, fingers hooking neatly around bone, while the other hand fits perfectly in the crook of the other’s neck.  With their bodies pressed together, Draco guides the other man back in a practiced dance towards the mattress.  His silver eyes gleam with a sort of desire that’s as tangible as the hardened need protruding from his lap.

 

Draco doesn’t have to say it, but he says it anyway, purring as their lips come close, “I want you.”

 

His companion admits before they kiss, “I want you more...  You’re even better than I’d imagined.” 

 

Were Draco not rendered speechless by a kiss and the dizzying warmth shared between their entwined bodies, he would have much to say to Harry Potter, likely with a sarcastic drawl. 

 

“ _You always have to outdo me, don’t you, Potter?_ ”

 

“ _Do you often imagine me naked, Potter?”_

 

The words stall in Draco’s mouth in favor of putting his sharp tongue to better use.  But he’s still saying these things in the recesses of his consciousness, causing the corner of his mouth to quirk with amusement even as it moves against Harry’s.

 

Draco wonders if the latter part of Potter’s statement had been intended for his ears.  He also wonders if it’s just a line.  Provided that the rumors are true, Draco Malfoy is not the first man to end up in Harry Potter’s bed after a night out in Muggle London - which is precisely where Harry had found Draco hiding out, two years after his disappearance from the final battle of Hogwarts.

 

Draco doesn’t bother being subtle or gentle.  He knows from their history on the quidditch pitch that Potter isn’t delicate.  He pushes Harry’s back into the mattress with less effort than he had anticipated needing. His hands press behind Harry’s bare thighs, which give way easily.  Harry Potter wants this and he’s not shy.  Draco drapes himself over Harry and nestles between long legs. Their bodies fit together like divine puzzle pieces, as if they _belong_ this way. 

 

Propped on extended arms, Draco marvels at the prize beneath him.  It is evident that the transition from gawky adolescence to adulthood had been dramatic for Harry Potter.  There’s the obvious graduation from horrible glass-bottle spectacles to more fashionable black frames.  Hair the color of raven’s feathers, once unruly, now has a purposefully tousled, just-shagged look.  He might even hazard to say that Potter’s hair is now stylish.  He isn’t positive, but the scar hidden behind dark fringe may have faded a little.  He would check, but to do so seems like an invasion akin to somebody squinting at the faint lines that coil on the underside of Draco’s left forearm.

 

Potter’s once gaunt, undernourished face now bears strong cheekbones and a refined jawline – a subtle masculinity and a patrician sort of beauty that echoes along the rest of his body.   Understated muscles glean with sweat along Harry’s arms and torso, giving Draco the notion that he could subdue Potter with a bit of effort.  But there is an unexpected authority in the way Harry touches him that makes Draco question this assumption.  He fancies himself able to hurt Harry if he really wanted to as he admires the other’s supple flesh. He licks a hot, wet, line along pale skin that Draco imagines would provide a lovely canvas upon which he could mark with teeth and fingers. 

 

It is achingly apparent that the years after Hogwarts had been very kind to Harry Potter.  Of course, Saint Bloody Potter would win at life and look fucking sexy while doing it.  If Draco weren’t in the Chosen One’s bed, he’d be bitter about the fact that Harry’s life had turned out so perfect while his life was one long string of mistakes and bad choices.  As Luck and an entire bottle of tequila would have it, he _is_ in bed with the man who had everything, and all the jealousy just makes Draco want to fuck him rotten.

 

“Tell me how you want me,” Draco whispers hotly, punctuating every other word with his teeth nipping possessively just below the earlobe, “Do you want me to fuck you?  Punish you deep and hard and mercilessly with my cock?”  He rocks his hips against Potter’s, letting the length of his erection press into the soft pelvic juncture, the friction sending a rush of heat through his body.  “Or do you want to ride my cock?  Slow, and sweet, and hot inside you?”

 

 

**III. Two Years And Three Months After The War**

 

“How is he?” Draco asks, peering over his teacup at Daphne.

 

“Who?” she cocks her head to the side as she charms the little spoon to stir the copious amounts of low-calorie sweetener in her tea.

 

“Who do you think?” Draco snaps impatiently. “The bloody Queen of England.”

 

“He seems,” Daphne starts and then pauses, humming as she searches for the right word, “on edge.  But I’d imagine that’s normal for somebody so high in the ranks of undercover aurors.  You’d be stressed too if you were on a DMLE special task force along side aurors twice your age with double your experience.”

 

Draco puts his cup and saucer down on the glass table of the solarium a little too hard.  “Bollocks,” he curses, “I thought you’d be able to find out more than what everybody with eyes could see.  What good is having a friend in the DMLE if she can’t bloody spy for me?”

 

She fixes a pointed glare upon him beneath her precisely cut fringe.  “Espionage is punishable by exile or life in Azkaban, you know.”

 

“I’m not asking for fucking Ministry secrets. I want to know if that motherfucker is doing what he’d done to me to some other unfortunate sap.”

 

She raises a skeptical brow.  “And you think that I’m going to be able to tell if he’s shagging suspected criminals from the way he hands me a sodding file jacket?”

 

Draco crosses his arms over his chest and huffs with an entitled air, “No, I expect you to look inside those sodding file jackets to glean any information you can.”

 

She holds up a hand to deflect blame. “I just do his obliviating.  Crime suspects typically don’t get obliviated.  Victims do. Going by Potter’s _modus operandi_ , I’d say I have no chance of coming into contact with somebody that he’s shagging.”

 

“Useless,” Draco mumbles.

 

“Love you too,” Daphne mutters, twisting her lips.

 

Draco sighs and massages his temples wearily. “I wasn’t talking about you, Daph.”

 

Daphne is still not having it. “Speaking of useless, I hope you were smarter than the other blokes duped into playing Potters game. Because if your pillow talk consisted of anything incriminating, he could use it against you.”

 

Draco scoffs and shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Of course not. He was good for a fuck and little else. I never talked, except to tell him where to put his cock.”

 

Daphne visibly cringes at the thought, but quickly shakes it off.  “You’re smarter than I thought, then.”

 

 

It is, of course, a lie. Draco had told Harry everything.

 

The DMLE hadn’t sent Harry Potter into the Muggle world to lure criminals out of hiding based on the merit of his resilience against The Dark Lord.  Harry Potter rose quickly through the ranks of Aurors because he was so bloody good at getting people to trust him.  He was an expert, by his own virtue, at swindling the truth out of people, no matter how dark and horrible those secrets were.

 

Harry could spin a lie more intricate than any Slytherin – a lie so believable that Draco actually fell for it. Draco is not stupid, nor is he particularly gullible.  But there’s a lot of history there, more history than Draco realized Harry knew. And Harry exploited it to his advantage. Because Draco never forgot how it felt when Harry rejected his handshake when they were children, and Harry knew what it was like to want something you couldn’t have.

 

It was so fucking easy for Draco to splay himself open and reveal his inner demons when Harry lay beneath him, spread open and vulnerable in every sense, disclosing his own evils – Saint Potter, he was not. It was liberating to excise the trauma of being a teenage Death Eater, to divulge the secrets that Draco had kept locked inside for so long. There was something so therapeutic about fucking the Hell out of Harry Potter, and then spilling his soul after spilling his seed. 

 

 

It has been weeks since Draco’s last rendezvous with Harry – weeks since he’d heard from him, which was quite upsetting, considering that they’d been meeting in secret for months.   In those weeks of silence, Draco had wondered if he’d been played.

 

Then a familiar owl comes and drops a scroll of parchment in Draco’s lap.

 

_D,_

_I’m sorry for being so distant.  I was worried that our secret wasn’t safe anymore.  I hope enough time has passed to throw off any suspicion.  I think we can hazard another meeting._

_Besides, I fucking miss you.  Not a day goes by when I don’t think about you.  I can still smell you in my sheets.  Hell, I can still feel you deep inside me.  I can still taste your kiss on my lips and your come on my tongue._

_I want you. Tonight.  I want you EVERY night.  I would give up everything for you, if you would just have me. No secrets, no lies. I want to walk out onto the streets of the Wizarding world with you at my side, without shame._

_I think I’m in love with you, you fucking arsehole.  What sort of evil spell have you put on me, you prat?_

_Whatever dark magic you’re using on me, keep on using it.  I don’t want this curse to break, for my heart will break with it._

_Meet me tonight at midnight at the Savoy, room 2711.  I’ll be there wearing nothing but a hard-on and a smile._

_Yours,_

_H_

 

 

 

It is in a posh room at the luxurious Savoy hotel in London, where Harry Potter pushes Draco face first into a richly papered wall, magically binds his hands behind his back, arrests him for crimes he had committed years ago, and breaks his heart more thoroughly than the first time he’d done it on their first day at Hogwarts.

 

 

**IV: Two Years, Three Months, and Two Days After the War**

“I can cut you a deal. A plea bargain,” Potter offers.

 

Draco scoffs haughtily, “Fuck your plea bargain. I’m done playing games with you.”

 

Potter reaches a hand across the table in the interrogation room.  “Draco, just hear me out.”

 

Draco snatches his own hand away as if Harry’s touch burns.  “Don’t you fucking _Draco_ me, Potter.”

 

Draco’s lawyer chimes in.  “Mr. Malfoy, if you’d prefer, I can review the plea bargain in my office.  You need not discuss it directly with Mr. Potter if you--”

 

Harry Potter, entitled as ever, interrupts the lawyer. “I need to talk directly to Draco, er, Mr. Malfoy.  And if you could please give us privacy, that would be greatly appreciated.”

 

Nobody says _no_ to Harry Potter.  Not even the highest paid lawyer in all of Wizarding England.

 

Draco mutters bitterly as he watches his lawyer leave the room.  “And they say corruption had been squeezed out of the Ministry… Go on, Potter.  What do you have to offer?”

 

Potter leans over the table and speaks quietly, even though they’re alone.  “If you testify against Blaise Zabini, and--”

 

Draco cuts in, “You must _really_ fancy me a right bastard if you think--”

 

But Potter cuts him off in turn. His green eyes plead as desperately as his words.  “Hear me out. Please.  If you testify that Blaise was your liaison in Venice, and if you drop the allegations against me, we can speed up the trial and reduce your sentence. You’d get house arrest. You wouldn’t have to serve jail time.”

 

Draco blinks incredulously and lays on the sarcasm thickly. “Oh, so you want me to deny the fact that you fucked me in order to get incriminating evidence against me. I see.  You lie to me, you deceive me, and you expect me to cover your arse.  That’s just rich, Potter. Plea deal, my arse.”

 

Potter pushes his glasses up and scrubs at his tired eyes with his fingertips.  Draco isn’t sure if their redness indicates lack of sleep, illness, or a bout of crying prior to their meeting.  He wishes all three upon Potter.

 

“Draco, I don’t want you to go to jail.” The furrow between his brow deepens. “It would kill me to see you in prison. Just take the fucking plea deal.”

 

Draco does his best to keep his cool, but clenches his fist so hard that his knuckles blanch.  “I will not plead guilty.  I never confessed.  You coerced me into telling you that I helped my parents and their friends escape to Italy after shit went down at Hogwarts.  As far as I’m concerned, you fed those false ideas into my head when you fed me your cock.”

 

“I admit, I went after you with the intention of making an arrest, but then things happened.”  Potter gestures between them emphatically. “ _We_ happened. Don’t you think I would’ve brought you in ages ago if I didn’t really care about you?”

 

Draco isn’t buying it.  “If you cared, you wouldn’t have arrested me at all.” He knows that Potter is still playing this ruthless game.

 

Harry Potter, if nothing else, is a good actor. The man sitting across from Draco appears all bent out of shape.  His outward appearance suggests he’s going through some sort of inner turmoil. Meanwhile, Draco will not show Harry Potter how much his lies are hurting him.  Potter will never know how thoroughly he has broken Draco. He will never give Potter that satisfaction.

 

Draco stares at his fingernails absently and says, “If you really care, if you really are in love with me like you claimed in your letter, then drop the charges.”

 

Potter looks down miserably and mutters, “I can’t do that without incriminating myself.  And if I do that, the entire system goes to shit.  Because if Harry Bloody Potter can’t be trusted, then how can anyone in the DMLE be trusted? I never asked to be the one to uphold the new world order after the war.  I can barely keep my shit together.  If I fall, we all fall. There’s a lot more at stake than my reputation.”

 

“You better fucking believe there’s more at stake.” Draco only raises his voice a fraction. “My life is at stake.”

 

“There is enough evidence against you to put you in Azkaban for a long time.  If you don’t take the plea deal, it is very likely you will get convicted.” Potter’s tone is sober, and Draco thinks he detects a hint of regret.  “If you take the plea deal, you are guaranteed to avoid jail time. I imagine five years confined to Malfoy Manor would be a fucking holiday compared to five years in prison.”

 

As much as Draco hates to admit it, the other man makes a good case. 

 

Potter rises from his seat just to go down on one knee at Draco’s side and gazes up at him, putting on the water works. “Draco, I’m sorry. Try to see things from my point of view. I’m expected to be the fucking hero every single day.  I have never come back from a mission without an arrest.  I didn’t want to arrest you, but my hand was forced.  If I didn’t bring you in, they would’ve sent some other auror to do it, and you wouldn’t be getting a plea deal.”

 

Draco raises a pale brow. “Oh, so I’m supposed to thank you?”

 

“I don’t want you to thank me. I want you to stop being a stubborn little bitch and take the fucking plea deal so you can go back to your fancy house in the country and I can shag your bloody brains out in your own home instead of wanking you off through the bars of your fucking jail cell.”

 

They stare at each other unblinkingly for a long, silent moment before smirking and snickering.

 

“You’d seriously visit me in Azkaban just to get me off?” Draco says, snorting a sarcastic laugh.

 

Potter shrugs.  “I’d rather just petition for visitation and fuck you while you’re under house arrest.  But if you’re going to refuse the plea deal…”

 

Draco smirks.  “Merlin’s balls.  You really are in love with me, aren’t you Potter?”

 

 

V: **Four Years After The War**

 

Draco closes his eyes and presses the fold of white paper to his parted lips, letting the tip of his tongue drag intimately along the seam. It is a ritualistic kiss, one that initiates the slow descent.  With careful pressure, he seals the wet paper with his fingertips, tucking the crumbled contents neatly inside.  He places the pinched end in his mouth and lights the opposite end with the tip of his wand. The paper singes, oxidizing to black in a flash like the streak of raven fringe across haunting green eyes, until the heat reaches the bundle of dried leaves within.  It glows orange as it slowly burns, glows like the ember of a memory that’s still hot inside his chest.  Perhaps if he blows against that ember, whispers his secrets to it, maybe he can inspire it to grow.  Maybe he can restart the fire that someone else had set.

 

With a deep breath, he takes the smoke into his throat and feels it scorch the delicate membranes.  Despite the acrid taste of it assaulting his tongue, he holds the harsh smoke inside, letting it spread and sink and fill him up. This will never replace the sweet burn he once felt, engulfed by the flames of another man that he once called his nemesis.

 

Before he exhales, he has a thought – perhaps that man never stopped being his nemesis.  Maybe it had always been his intention to destroy Draco, if not with a hex, then with the lingering promise of another kiss that would never come. The smoke escapes his lips in a white plume, seeping out of his mouth like his soul meeting a Dementor. And the rite is repeated, again and again, the smoke ravaging his lungs with each deep pull, until the world falls out of focus.

 

The clarity of his vision may be impaired temporarily, but he sees more clearly now.  Life slows down enough for him to see the patterns amongst the chaos. His mind stills and focuses with more precision.    Questions blossom like springtime and each answer he gleans with another pull of smoke is more profound and more beautiful than the last.  Why does Draco do these things to people? More importantly, why does Draco do this to himself?  Why does he drink and smoke and fuck and lie until he’s numb?  What does Draco really want?

 

He sits on the leather sofa with his bare feet perched on the coffee table, the refuse of tonight’s distractions strewn about the top. His diamond and platinum cufflinks rest irreverently in a crystal ashtray amongst cigarette ends.  His silk tie spills over the edge of the table onto the floor, where it meets a crumpled pool of clothes that are not his own. The remnants of glittery, pale gold Bliss dust the glass surface of the table, mingling with ash. A discarded condom floats in the dregs within a champagne flute. 

 

Theodore is passed out with his head on Draco’s lap. Ashes fall like snow and pepper his deathly white cheek.  Draco doesn’t bother to brush away the ash and instead taps the spliff over Theodore’s face, just to see how far he can go before the hot ash burns.  Draco has been doing this to his best friend for their whole lives – hurting him and hurting him and hurting him until he breaks. But Theodore never breaks.

 

Draco wishes he could be as strong, as devoted, as adoring. Draco wishes he could be worthy of Theodore’s love.  Draco wishes Theodore would just crack in two and leave him to wither away to nothing, alone in his gilded prison.  It is what he deserves.

 

He takes another deep pull of smoke. As he exhales, he says to himself, _happy fucking birthday to me._

 

He laughs mirthlessly. His laughter grows maniacal and shakes his sleeping companion, who still doesn’t wake. Draco wonders if Theodore has overdosed on the illicit substances that he’d brought to their pathetically small party – the celebration of another year of Draco’s persistence in a world that wanted him to disappear.  This is all so sad that it’s fucking hilarious.

 

In his hysteria, he drops the smoldering butt of the spliff on the Persian rug and the stench of singed wool tickles his nose. He watches the blue and white fibers turn brown, entranced.  He kicks the champagne glass onto the fire, and instead of going out, the alcohol fuels the fire. He watches the room go up in flames and he welcomes their destruction.  He wants to catch fire and fucking _feel_ something again. 

 

But he knows that no matter how hot the flames become, they can never consume him with the same intensity as when he was once burned by a raven-haired creature.


End file.
